Yes, Danielle Steel's second Star Ball, a benefit for the Nick Traina Foundation sponsored by Ann Fay Barry and the Ritz-Carlton, drew a crowd of more than 400 guests who paid at least $500 to support treatment of mental illness. That was one of the underlying factors in the suicide of her son, Nick, who battled bipolar disorder and died in 1998 at age 19.

But what really lit up Steel's evening was a telephone call before the party -- while she was getting ready with her daughters at home -- from a young man named Thomas. She had come to know him at a hospital where he was undergoing treatment after trying to commit suicide three times.

"I'm doing great," he told her. "I'm coming home."

It was, Steel said, "a victory," and one of many poignant moments in an evening dedicated to Nick. Steel, ordinarily private about her personal life, has written a book about the ordeal, spoken before the U.S. Senate on mental illness, and shares her time with young people and their parents facing mental illness.

"I like to think some good things have happened since Nick died," Steel told guests in a heartfelt address. "He left us many gifts. . . . One of those has been the courage to speak up."

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, who also spoke, noted that more than 10 million children have diagnosable mental illness but only one in five is receiving treatment. She said the government and the health care and insurance industries should give mental illness parity in treatment with other diseases because "it is physical illness."

Showing solidarity, two of Steel's former husbands, John Traina and venture capitalist Tom Perkins, came to support the cause. Trevor Traina, one of Steel's stepsons, said that for all of her many children, it was "nice to have an occasion to come together and remember Nick and share him with others."

Mobley recalled vacationing with Steel and family in Hawaii, and the way Nick, at age 6, would request her hand for a dance. "I still dance with him," she said. "He's my best dance partner."

The mood was lightened pre-dinner by a brisk auction of luxury jewelry and baubles (high point: Paul Pelosi bidding $13,000 for a diamond-and-pearl choker) and post-dinner by the performances of Ray Charles and the Temptations.

And there was style aplenty, although Leighton said he would have liked to see more of the women in big gems (naturally). Steel wore a white Balmain strapless gown with black polka-dots, daughters Victoria a floral Dior and Vanessa a blue strapless YSL. Mobley wore a white lace shirt and black skirt by Badgley Mischka, and Talley wore black mules with ruffles and red heels, designed by his friend Manolo Blahnik based on paintings of royalty at Versailles.

Collins, busy with her latest novel, "Deadly Embrace," made the trip from Los Angeles thanks to VIP transportation a la Steel.

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"If I finish the book, I'll come, but you'll have to send the bus," Collins told Steel, referring to the decked-out motor coach in which Steel takes road trips with her children.

What's a Star Ball without stars? Steel sent the bus.

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